I recently posted a comment on Adam Cleaveland's blog regarding his post on Calling. I found it very interesting. Calling is something that I grew up hearing and believing in a certain way. It was the idea that God had something very specific for your life-- a specific careeer, a specific school, etc. We need to abandon such an idea of call... frankly because it has been taken too extreme and misses the greater call of Scripture... our communal call as the Church. We need to leave behind the individualist era that sees God carrying whether I go to Cal State Univ. of Cal. when people all around the world do not have such choices to make (so what of their call?). We seem to think God cares in particular for our small choices in life at the same time he seems to ignore major problems in the world-- this individualist centered calling results in this kind of thinking.
How in the world do people still understand call in this fashion? We have a communal calling in the church, and it is the church that assigns us to a particular place or setting as it is engaged in prayer and discernment-- that communal calling should lead us to an eschatological goal-- the same eschatological goal that drove Christ-- reconciliation of creation-- which led to a challenging of the system, which led to his death.
I think it's the modern vs postmodern view of thinking. Modernists still hold on to that absolute truth theory (one Truth=one Call). PoMos can see how different avenues can come together to achieve the same result.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how people can place God in such a human reference that they think He would just put us all on tracks, wind us up and let us go onward toward our "one true call." I'm simplifying it, but that's essentially what such thinking symbolizes. Rather, I agree with your call for the church theory, and to me, how we get there is the intricate, wonderful mystery and power that is God.
I feel "called" to work with children now, but in the past, I felt called to be an engineer and sometimes I feel "called" to go rock climbing with an atheist friend, and it turns out that on that outing she asks about God. All those calls work together towards that goal of the Church.
I'm rambling now. Shouldn't post on my day off! ;o)
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ReplyDeleteYes... I think you are right. Part of this is even the way our brains have developed... linear thinking versus web thinking. Many us today see calling all around us... a world full of God's voice (and thus God's call) and the voices of people in need.
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